Adobe Connect 8 Unveiled; VidYo Gets on Board

Peter Prestipino

Posted on 10.31.2010

Adobe has upgraded its Web conferencing solution Adobe Connect (8).

Features of the new release include an improved UI (user interface) to allow presenters to adjust meeting room layouts in real-time, enhancements to functionality pods to faciliate collaboration (sharing, chat, video, notes, whiteboard), addition of two-way Universal Voice (allows customers to bridge audio from any conferencing provider into an Adobe Connect room and provide two-way communication between participants on both VoIP and telephone audio) and what I find most interesting (and I'm guessing you will too) is the integration of Adobe Connect with existing video conferencing systems, enabling meeting hosts to bring live audio and video broadcast streams directly into an Adobe Connect room.

For developers, Adobe Connect 8 offers a software development kit (SDK) with support for Adobe Flex®, Adobe Flash and Adobe ActionScript® 3. Vidyo announced this morning that it will support Adobe Connect 8 with a "personal telepresence" plug-in, which integrates the two services using Vidyo API's) that will allow users to launch a telepresence-quality Vidyo conference within an Adobe connect system.

“We’re seeing the adoption of Web conferencing as a core collaboration technology for everyday use accelerate rapidly,” said Andy Nilssen, senior analyst, Wainhouse Research. “In addition, we’re also seeing enterprises increase expectations for their Web conferencing solution. These organizations want to go well beyond everyday meetings and seminars to enable myriad and divergent use cases, easily extend solution capabilities with key new functionality, integrate with existing infrastructure such as video conferencing room systems, and support meeting access via a wide choice of mobile devices. All while providing meeting participants with a great user experience.”